This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art, which may be related to various aspects of the present invention that are described and claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present invention. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
One of the most widely used forms of data storage in modern computers is the disk drive. Disk drives store information on a media, such as a magnetic disk, an optical disk, or a magnetic tape. When information is requested by a user, the computer may send a request to a disk drive controller which accesses the disk drive and retrieves the requested information. As the storage capacity of disk drives, especially hard disk drives, has increased, the disk drives themselves have become more sophisticated. As such, many disk drives now resemble simple computers rather than just data storage components. For example, many hard disk drives now include central processing units and read only memories (“ROM”), often referred to as firmware, that control the disk drive's internal hardware and data access.
In many disk drives, the instructions stored on the firmware can be updated or replaced through a process known as “reflashing.” Reflashing can be employed to change the way the disk drive functions. For example, the firmware of a hard disk drive can be reflashed with updated instructions that may enable the hard disk drive to function more efficiently. Conventionally, reflashing a disk drive involved turning off the computer system, rebooting the computer system with a specialized operating system stored on a compact disc, executing a reflashing utility on the computer system, and then rebooting the computer system back to its normal operating system. This series of events may take several minutes per disk drive to complete. During this time, the computer system may be unable to perform its primary function (i.e., the computer system may be off-line or “down”). For a computer system employing tens, hundreds, or more disk drives, the cumulative “downtime” to reflash the disk drives can be relatively long. Moreover, rebooting the computer system with a specialized operating system may require the computer system to have a compact disc drive or may require physical access to the computer system. These restrictions can limit or prevent reflashing of disk drives coupled to computer systems without dedicated access consoles (e.g., “headless servers”, such as blade servers).